


Roulette

by Riva (vocative)



Category: The Pretender
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vocative/pseuds/Riva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Debbie Broots (Broots' daughter) as she grew up, and as she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roulette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piecesofalice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/gifts).



> D, who made it better, and ilyena-sylph, who made it best: thank you.
> 
> Written for piecesofalice

 

 

The room was too big, too noisy, and too smoky. Debbie raised her head and glanced around. Too many people, too. She looked up at Mommy, on the padded stool above her, then set her cheek back against the cool metal of the pole supporting the seat. Mommy wasn't winning this time. Debbie squeezed her eyes shut as coins chattered and clanged behind her. Wrapping her hands tighter around her knees, she wished that Mommy would win more. She smiled when she won.

Last time had been better. "My good luck charm!" she had said as she kissed Debbie's hair. That time, the machine had made so much noise that a crowd of people came and stood around, and the man who looked like a police officer had walked them to the car.

The machine in the row behind her noisily spilled out a bunch of coins again. She didn't like these kind of machines. The ones that just had all the lights and music were prettier, and quieter, but Mommy didn't like the paper that they gave. She said that 'money wasn't money until you could feel it'. Debbie turned her head seeking a cooler place on the skin warm chrome. Maybe this time Mommy would win everything and they could go home and she would have a party because it was her birthday tomorrow and Mommy would smile and they would sing and laugh and it would be better.

Maybe Daddy would come pick her up again. Debbie sighed and wrinkled up her face wishing.

\--

The baby started wailing a second before the phone rang. It happened often enough that she was starting to wonder. She reached under the rickety end table and popped the cord from the socket with a practiced flick. No, it was just chance. We saw the things we looked for. Padding across the faded motel carpet, she swung the baby up into her arms and hushed him as he wriggled and fussed. No, we saw the things we looked for. Debbie just wished that they would stop looking at her.

\--

She went back to Paris on her honeymoon, but the city had lost its enchantment from when she was a girl. The Eiffel Tower was an out-of-place tourist trap, and the Louvre had lines longer than Disney World. Still, it was Paris and she was a bride.

The last day they stayed in and ate French fries from the McDonald's next to the hotel. They tasted better than at home--more French she supposed. They laughed and whispered broken foreign phrases into each others' mouths and made love. A breeze from the open balcony door carried the smell of French fries and mustard through the room, and she smiled.

The divorce came less than a year later, clean and not unexpected. Sometimes, though, she still got an extra order of fries and let them grow cold on the counter, and she would smile.

\--

Her clothes all fit neatly into the faded grey gym bag, with room left for an emergency diaper. Scooping up her son, she shifted her keys to her other hand and pulled the door shut behind her. The motel had been paid up through Wednesday. Everything else was already in the car, so she slid the boy into his carseat, tossed the grey bag on the floor in front of him and knocked the car door shut with a cant of her hip. She paused for a moment, leaning against the grimy car. She didn't feel any eyes on her at the moment. Debbie pushed off from the car and brushed at the dust ground into her pants.

As she backed out of the gravel lot, she put in one of her favorite driving mixes. On the road to another town, she rolled down the window and hummed along, occasionally turning to sing to her son as he whacked his fists against the seat in syncopated rhythm. "...Sunbeams will soon smile through, Good mornin', good mornin', to you."

\--

She wondered sometimes what it would have been like to grow up normal.

Her childhood had been typical enough. After all, everyone's family had problems, just some had different kinds. A single father and a gambling mother was small enough to not even warrant mention. No, the normal she dreamed of was innocence. Her father had done his best to protect her, to shelter her, but she had eyes and ears.

Strange phone calls, business trips, odd men at odd hours, not to mention kidnapping attempts--Debbie had never wondered if there was something out there. She knew. Conspiracy theories weren't off-the-wall, they were perfectly logical. She had never doubted, had never been given a chance to. Her life had been stained at the edge with shadows; she could barely remember a time when her father hadn't kept a gun.

Knowledge wasn't always power. Mostly it was fear.

\--

The cabin Debbie rented was set against the woods, with a small screened porch. The man in the drafty office had a face with wrinkles so deep they could have been razorblade scars. She shifted her sleeping son and leaned into the counter to sign the papers with a looping hand. He was polite enough not to ask, but she told him about her husband and how his flight was delayed. He'd be meeting her the next morning, she chattered, his business trip run long, and he was so eager to spend the week here with her and their son. The man nodded once, and slid the keys across to her. "Of course, Mrs. Reynolds. Number 13."

She only brought in the grey bag and the baby's things. No use unpacking the rest of the car. She always had to leave.

\--

When she was little, Debbie wanted to grow up to be Miss Parker. She had made her father read to her from _Little Women_ until she could recite the story with him. Miss Parker had been kind to her in her own fashion. Her distance and aloofness had seemed powerful when Debbie was a child, but now she could see pain and isolation for what they were.

Debbie thinks, on the bad days, that she should have been careful what she wished for.

\--

The cabin would be safe for now. There was no phone except in the office, and the woods segued into national forest. Her son would need diapers and more baby food soon, but the remoteness would be better when she had to move on.

When Debbie Broots was young and foolish, she once wished to be the center of attention. The Centre had obliged her. She could feel the eyes watching her, saw the sweepers pull up as she drove away. She would not let them take her son's life as they had so many others. As they had taken her own childhood.

And, in the quiet moments at night, she remembered that we only saw what we wanted to. Until the baby cried, and the phone rang again.

 

 

 


End file.
